


Come Singing from Death

by Cherepashka



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aftermath of Canonical Character Death, Angst, Dealing With Guilt, Discussion of Canonical Suicide, Fingon gets Maedhros from Mandos, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Post-reembodiment Elves, Tolkien Secret Santa 2018, With an Optimistic Ending, emotional labor union, it doesn't quite go as he expected, morality is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 14:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17143553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherepashka/pseuds/Cherepashka
Summary: As always, the walls of Mandos were smooth and featureless, with no sign of the door that had let him out so many years ago. As always, his own voice sounded thin and muted against the fog and unyielding stone.And yet, as always, Fingon set down his pack and bow, unslung his harp, and sang.(They might be out of Mandos, but the healing isn’t done.)





	Come Singing from Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sindefara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sindefara/gifts).



> Happy holidays, Sindefara! This was meant to be 1200-1500 words but it, um, got a bit out of hand. Hope you like it anyway!  
> _________
> 
> Quenya names:
> 
> Maedhros: Maitimo  
> Fingon: Findekáno  
> Amrod and Amras: Ambarussa

_When Fingon son of Fingolfin came in the hour of his death to the Halls of Mandos, long were the years that passed in the world outside while his spirit drifted, senseless; and long it was before his_ fëa _cast off the memory of the hurts he had suffered in his final battle in Beleriand._

 _But his father’s_ fëa _found him then, and he found a measure of healing in the comfort offered by that steadfast spirit, and awoke enough to recall the deeds of his life and the manner of his death. He thought then of those he had left in Middle-earth, and so it was that Fingon went to seek out the tapestries of Vairë the Weaver._

_He passed quickly, for the most part, over events he had lived through, though he abided long and with a heavy heart before a tapestry of Alqualondë with its pearl-sands darkened with blood and smoke. He paused too at a weaving of Losgar, seeking out among all the flame-colored threads a lone flame-haired figure that stood to one side. But he lingered not on the deaths of his siblings, nor on his father’s end, nor on his own._

_And so at last he came to tapestries of swords drawn in Menegroth, wrought in bright silver thread; and then of swords unsheathed once more at the Havens of Sirion upon another seashore stained with smoke and Elven blood; and finally of those same swords, dwindled now to two, raised in the midst of a great host, their silver dim beside the light of twin jewels. One of those jewels he saw cast into the sea, but the other was borne deep into the fires of the earth._

_Then for the first time since his death Fingon wished for a body, for without his_ hröa _his_ fëa _could not weep._

  


* * *

  


Fingon closed the door behind him, shouldered his pack, and turned westward. Arien was drawing near the horizon, and he raised a hand in greeting. Then singing softly he descended the hill, pausing from time to time to lay a hand against the rough bark of the valley oaks marking the winding path. They were many-times descendants of trees that had been mere seedlings when first came here, years after his return from Mandos, and they were large enough that even with his arms fully outstretched he could not encircle their boles.

There were more houses along the path now too, enough that what had started with Fingon’s solitary dwelling could almost be called a settlement. Many exiled Ñoldor, returned from Mandos or from over the Sea, found it difficult to live with kin who had seen Beleriand only at its destruction, and so they came here. Other dwellings belonged to Sindar who had lived in Hithlum or fought in the companies of Himring or the Gap. And the hills around the settlement held many Laiquendi, who vanished as easily into red-barked conifers and fragrant bay trees as they once had into the elms and beeches of Ossiriand. An odd and scattered and indeterminate place, Fingon thought, yet it was known as a haven for those who had lived in Middle-earth and could not or would not find a home elsewhere in Aman. Besides, many who lived here waited for comrades who lingered in the Halls: the little settlement sat near the path that led from Mandos to Valmar, or Tirion, or the ferry port to Tol Eressëa. 

It was that path that Fingon took now, but in the opposite direction. The outer walls of Mandos were some days’ journey westward on foot. The distance itself was not so great, but the way seemed to grow slower as he went, hard-packed dirt turning to soft sand that dragged at his bootheels, autumn wind picking up as if to push him backward. The return journey was always much easier, for the land itself seemed determined to drive the living toward life, but Fingon had a song to steady his stride and a bright Moon to light the way at night, and he pushed on. 

He traveled alone; he had made this journey on horseback the first few times, but had soon realized that it was harder to push two living creatures against the bent of the land than one. Now he made the trek with only his pack, his light hunting bow, and his harp. At the very bottom of his pack was an extra set of clothes, cut longer than his own. 

It seemed a long time before the great grey walls of Mandos rose out of the low fog before him, though by the passage of Arien and Tilion it had been less than a week. As always, the walls were smooth and featureless, with no sign of the door that had let him out so many years ago. As always, his own voice sounded thin and muted against the fog and unyielding stone. 

And yet, as always, he set down his pack and bow, unslung his harp, and sang. 

His family thought him a fool for making these trips; Turgon had outright called him one. “You’re wasting your time, Finno,” he had growled, not bothering to hide his exasperation. “You could return to Tirion — Uncle would welcome your help! Or if that’s not to your taste you could build a city of your own, here in Aman!” Turgon had done exactly that, but Fingon had left his brother’s shining city in the foothills of the Pelóri the next day to return to his house among the valley oaks. 

He could not explain it to Turgon; he wasn’t even sure he could explain it to himself. He had not been permitted to see Maedhros in the Halls, and could not say what he would have said or done if he had been. More than once he had thought, with the disgust and anger that were easier to bear than grief, that surely little could be left of the person he had known, for he would have sworn once that his cousin was strong enough to resist the Shadow, strong enough to resist despair. _Strong enough to resist the Oath?_ asked a treacherous voice in his mind. 

Had Maedhros even tried? 

Perhaps Fingon had never truly known him at all. 

Yet Ambarussa had returned, together again if quieter than they had been in their first lives. Celebrimbor, too, carrying the memories of pain and betrayal, but carrying also the will to live with them. And then Caranthir and, nearly an Age later, Celegorm and Curufin. 

But of all his brothers, only Maedhros had sought his own death. And of all who had sworn their terrible Oath, only he and Fëanor himself remained in Mandos. 

Nevertheless, Fingon sang: playful lilting rounds that the children of Hador’s people had sung in Dor-lómin during the Long Peace; laments for lost Beleriand; marching songs from Himring and riding songs from the Gap. He sang, too, of valley oaks in Moonlight and a little house on a hillside. 

Arien had risen again, burning away the fog, when he finally stilled the harpstrings and stood, flexing his hands. The wall before him was unchanged; he bowed his head. The road would be easier on the return journey, and his pack lighter, as always, but the weight on his spirit would be heavier. He drew in a breath, gathering the strength to carry it. 

“Findekáno?”

He looked up, quickly enough to strain his neck, into a face he had last seen on the shores of Araman. Unscarred, beautiful, painfully familiar and utterly foreign. 

“Maitimo,” he breathed. 

His cousin’s mouth twisted. “Maedhros.” His voice was hoarse as if with long disuse, but it lacked the raspiness it had carried for as long as Fingon had known him in Beleriand.

He was clad in a drab grey robe identical to the one Fingon had found himself wearing when he had first emerged from Mandos into life. Though he was as tall as Fingon remembered him, he stood slightly hunched, and the robe hung large on his thin frame, sleeves dangling past his wrists. But he had both hands, now. 

Behind him, the wall seemed to ripple. Maedhros turned to look at it, making an abortive gesture toward what might have been a door as it folded seamlessly into the dark stone. 

There were a thousand things Fingon wanted to say: _I have missed you,_ and _How could you?_ and _Why did Námo release you now, after so long, and yet before the breaking of the world?_ Instead he said hastily, and rather inanely, “I have clothes for you.” 

Maedhros was still looking at the wall with an expression bordering on panic, but he turned back at Fingon’s words and nearly overbalanced, swaying on his feet. Fingon grabbed his arm to steady him. At the touch Maedhros gasped, and then all at once he was taking deep shuddering breaths as though his lungs, now that they remembered how to work, were determined to take in all the air in Arda. 

Carefully Fingon took his hand — his right hand, suppressing his own gasp at the realization that he could do that now — and drew him away from the grey stone wall. 

“Come. I have clothes, as I said, and food, and there is a stream not far from here to refill my waterskin.” All else that lay between them could wait. 

Maedhros followed easily enough, though he still seemed shaky on his feet. When they reached the stream Fingon set down his pack and began to rummage through it. “Water first, or food, or clothes?” He stood up, a packet of dried fruit in one hand and the tunic from the bottom of his pack in the other. 

The panicked, lost look had not quite left Maedhros’s face, but it gave way to one of incredulity as he took the tunic in his left hand and shook it out. He said, hesitant as though words were slow to return to his mind and tongue, “I did not know whether, let alone when, I would be released, until it happened. So how did you know to turn up outside Mandos, with clothes in precisely the right size, at precisely the right time?”

“I didn’t,” Fingon said simply. “I’ve been coming every season since my own return.” 

Maedhros’s hand tightened around the cloth. “Every—“ He exhaled, hard. “How long has it been?”

Fingon told him. 

Maedhros frowned. “I did not think it would be so soon,” he murmured, mostly to himself. Then he looked at Fingon again. “But for one who feels time as it passes outside the Halls. . . it has been a long time for you.”

“Yes.” 

Maedhros sat down abruptly, not appearing to care that the ground was rather muddy. He hunched forward, copper hair falling like a veil around his face. “Why?”

Surely Fingon could give him a better answer than he had given Turgon. If only he knew what that answer might be. He shrugged. “I have always been incorrigibly stubborn.”

Maedhros let out a choked _Hah!_ that was not quite a sob and not quite a laugh, and shook his head. “This is excessive, cousin, even for you. You had no reason to think I would be released before the breaking of Arda.”

Fingon smiled crookedly. “Reason had very little to do with it.”

That drew another _Hah!_ from Maedhros, this time with a bit more humour to it. He stood and shrugged off his grey robe. He was still thin — too thin, Fingon thought, and then realized his eyes were lingering on the jut of a hipbone and hastily averted his gaze. Maedhros, fortunately, seemed not to notice; he drew on the tunic and tugged his hair from the collar where it had gotten caught. It was longer now than he’d ever worn it in Beleriand. The fastenings at the neck were designed to be worked one-handed, but he used his right hand to close them. Fingon handed him a pair of leggings and the extra boots slung from his pack, then bent to refill his waterskin while Maedhros pulled them on. 

Those tasks done, they set off again, Fingon sharing out his food and water as they walked. For a time, neither spoke. Maedhros seemed to be reacquainting himself with the habit of living once more in a physical body; Fingon reacquainted himself with the habit of watching Maedhros. As a youth in Aman Maedhros had managed to turn height that might have made him lanky and awkward into an agile, careless grace; in Beleriand after Thangorodrim his movements had been more measured and economical, for pain had forced him to plan each motion and he’d never lost the habit. Now, his breathing was slow and deliberate, but he seemed almost clumsy, eyes wide and watering slightly in the breeze. Where he had once stood easily to his full height, a constant reminder to the folk of Himring that it was possible to endure Angband and remain unbowed, now he remained slightly hunched, as though fearful of taking up too much space — or as though he felt the space he did take up should go to a worthier occupant. 

He was beautiful, and very little like the person Fingon remembered, and it made Fingon ache.

They walked for hours without conversation, stopping occasionally to share Fingon’s food. Maedhros seemed content to remain silent, asking nothing about where they were going or what had happened in the world while he had been in Mandos. Fingon sang, rather than talking, to mark the hours. Sometimes as they walked the back of Maedhros’s hand would brush against his, or he would rest a hand at Maedhros’s back or elbow to steady him over a bit of uneven ground. Every moment of touch was a reminder that Maedhros was here, was real; and if they were reminders of other memories too, well, that was neither here nor there and Fingon’s skin was dark enough to hide a blush. Maedhros might well not want to rekindle what they had had before their deaths; Fingon was not sure he himself did. 

It was drawing close to evening when they came to a clearing and Maedhros suddenly halted, going stiff. 

The Evening Star had appeared low in the sky, twinkling with kindly light. 

Maedhros was looking at it, hands clenched, bitterness and longing and regret plain on his face. 

Hesitantly Fingon touched his arm, unsure whether he ought to feel alarm or anger or pity. Maedhros wrenched his gaze away from the Silmaril and shook his head, hard, as if to dislodge water from his ears. 

“You need not look at me like that,” he told Fingon drily, though his voice was hoarse. “It is safe from all evil.” He slowly unfolded his left hand and held it out — and here was the one scar he had carried back from death, faded from the anger of burned flesh to the smooth stain of a birthmark but still clearly showing the facets of his father’s gem. 

“Including me.”

Fingon cupped his hand in both of his own, very gently, and then looked Maedhros in the face, quietly and suddenly furious. “Why did you do it?”

“Which part of it?”

“Any of it — all of it! Alqualondë I can understand; I’ve had to make my own peace there, and it wasn’t as if you went in planning a slaughter. But Doriath? _Sirion_? Refugees and children? And then at the last, to—” He broke off. 

Maedhros was silent a long time. “I do not have an answer that can explain it. I do not excuse it. I thought at the time that the Oath gave us no choice, but even that proved false.

“I spent a long time wishing you had killed me when I begged you to.” 

Fingon dropped his hand and stepped back, shocked and hurt, and yet uncomfortably aware that Maedhros had voiced a thought he had had himself. 

“No, wait,” Maedhros said at once. “I did not mean— that was unfair of me.” He exhaled, struggling for words. “Findekáno. My choices were nothing but my own, never think otherwise. But. . . I could not but think it would have been better for the sons of Nimloth if I had died on the mountain. Even before the Nirnaeth, there were many times I thought death would have been easier.”

Fingon had suspected as much, though he’d never had the courage to bring it up — so much for being called _Valiant_ , he thought bitterly — and Maedhros had never said anything, not after those first feverish months after his rescue when in delirium he had begged for an end. Fingon set down his pack and busied himself pulling out their food so that he would not have to look at Maedhros’s face as he said, “You should have told me.”

“I should,” Maedhros agreed, kneeling across from him. “But I could not risk your hope. You always managed to see a way forward when I could not. I am very sorry I got you killed.”

Fingon let out an incredulous bark of laughter. “Of all things, _that_ is what you think you need to apologize for? There are so many things wrong with that, I do not even know where to start.”

Maedhros looked at him, and there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. For the first time, he looked something like the kinsman Fingon had left in Beleriand, and Fingon was seized by a mad urge to kiss him, so relieved was he to see that familiar look. 

“I am sorry for other things too. But we will be sitting here an Age if you wish for me to name them all.” Maedhros grew sober again. “I should not have made you carry the burden of hope for both of us. The danger of that became clear when you died, and I had none of my own. That is when it stopped seeming possible to take the Silmarils in Angband, and so. . .”

“And so, Doriath,” Fingon finished, feeling sick. 

Maedhros nodded. “And Sirion.” He said nothing more, but rose and went off into the woods. Fingon did not move to follow him, but sat alone in silent thought, deeply troubled and sore at heart. It was not his place to offer forgiveness for kidnappings and Kinslayings. He was not sure he had any to offer, in any case. But for faltering hope and failing will, for grief and despair and the end of endurance — he had faulted those too, and those, could he not forgive? The Valar has returned Maedhros, after all. Healing must start somewhere; where, if not here? And how, if not with him?

Maedhros returned with an armful of dry wood just as Fingon was starting to entertain entirely new worries that he had met some mischance in the woods, matters of Oaths and war aside. 

“If we are camping here, we may as well have a fire.” He deposited the wood before Fingon and piled some of it into a pyramid, placing pieces of kindling at its base and lighting it with a word. Then he stepped back, flexing his left hand. 

Fingon caught it in his own and knelt the ground beside the fire, drawing Maedhros down beside him. He took a breath. “Maedhros. I cannot say that I yet understand, but. . . I am glad you’re back.” 

Maedhros closed his hand around Fingon’s and held on. 

“Are you? That is good to hear.” The slight tremor in his voice belied his light tone. 

“It will not be easy.”

“No. There is no undoing what was done.”

“But we can go on. You are here, and alive, and free of your Oath. That’s a start, isn’t it?”

But Maedhros pulled away from his grip at that. “Free? No, Finno.”

The fire’s warmth seemed suddenly a poor barrier against the wind. “What do you mean? You fulfilled it, you took a Silmaril; you killed to do it,” he added bitterly. “You were given mercy even then.” _And you refused it._ It had not been the Valar’s justice that killed Maedhros. 

“ _Ai_ , Finno, when Eönwë ordered his host to let us go, that was no mercy. Or at least, if it was, it was not mercy meant for us. 

“ _Less evil will we do in the breaking,_ my brother told me. He too could see another path when I could not. I should have heeded him then, but I left him alone instead.” He closed his eyes. Maglor had never come to Mandos. “I will heed him now, though. The Evening Star sails the sky; I will not seek it. Let it give the world what hope it may. But everlasting darkness we swore if we broke our Oath, and we have broken it, and soon or late Darkness will come.” 

Suddenly Fingon wanted pull Maedhros into his arms and kiss him until he dragged a denial of what Maedhros had just said from his lips. Instead he shook his head furiously and cast about for a counterargument. “If that is so, how can you break it now when you could not before?” Or would not, but that was a thought Fingon refused to contemplate. 

“Nienna changed the shape of it; that at least _is_ a mercy. No longer does it hound me like a serpent or a wolf, snapping and hungry and relentless. Now it is more like the weight of a heavy pack, say, or the pain of a missing hand.” He gave Fingon a look that was more than a touch sardonic. Fingon stared at him; only Maedhros would try to kindle exasperation to counter horror. “It sleeps, it is bearable; but it is not gone. I think that was the only reason I was given the option to leave Mandos at all, accepting that the Oath was broken and that I must keep on breaking it, and face the consequences I called upon myself.”

“The Valar would not be so cruel.”

“Not intentionally, perhaps. But it is not the Valar who hold our Oath.” 

“Still less can I believe the One would be so cruel.”

“Yet it was the One who gave us the will to choose, and my father and brothers and I chose the Darkness.” Maedhros spoke as if he were pointing out some minor flaw in a syllogism in the lorehalls of Tirion long ago. In the firelight his hair was darkened, his grey eyes more steel than silver. His even tone faltered a bit as he added, “Though I would spare my brothers if I could.”

Fingon did not bother trying to keep his own voice calm or contain the conflicting emotions surging up within him. “Have you forgotten there was mercy for us before? That there is mercy now?”

Maedhros looked at him with a slight smile; faint, but real. The sight of it made Fingon want to weep. “It seems you are determined to remind me. Very well. I will try to share your hope. I did say it was unfair to make you shoulder its burden for both of us. If it is any comfort, I have no intention of seeking the Darkness before my time. I have been given a chance at life. I mean to take it.”

“Good,” said Fingon, quieter now.

“Still,” and as Maedhros looked into the fire his gaze grew distant, as though he were looking at different flames than the ones that burned cheerfully in their little campfire, “I will not deny that I am afraid.”

Fingon reached out and took his hand again, drawing it toward himself and cupping it against his cheek. He would not convince Maedhros that he might yet be spared everlasting darkness, not tonight. But, “I will be with you, for as long as you want me to.” 

Maedhros’s breath caught. “Finno—”

Fingon turned his face into Maedhros’s hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. “If you want me to.”

Maedhros was staring at him helplessly. “Finno, you shouldn’t — I am not — I am a murderer many times over, and I have just told you I am bound for the Darkness in the end.”

“And, Eru help me, I love you still,” and he realized as he said it that it was true. “So what does that make me?” He meant to say it lightly, but it came out raspy with need. Maedhros’s hand was still cupped against his cheek, and Fingon felt his pulse speed up wildly where his wrist touched his jawbone.

“Incorrigibly stubborn,” Maedhros choked out. “Are you sure?”

Rather than answering with words, he scrambled around the edge of the campfire and took Maedhros in his arms as he had wanted to do before. Maedhros closed his eyes and sat stiffly within his embrace, still frozen, but Fingon knelt beside him and found himself smiling. Gently he kissed each of Maedhros’s eyelids, and then his mouth. 

Maedhros’s lips parted with a gasp, and though it was strange to feel only smooth skin and no scar tissue where their lips met, the taste and motion of him was utterly familiar. Fingon pressed hungrily against him. 

But when Maedhros’s arms finally came up to encircle him, hands sliding up the back of his shirt, Fingon froze. Maedhros drew back. “Is something wrong?” 

A worried frown creased his forehead, and that too was utterly familiar — familiar enough to chase away Fingon’s momentary disorientation. “No, nothing,” he said, and grinned. “I wasn’t expecting two hands, is all.” He drew Maedhros back into their kiss. 

It was a new sensation, to have one of Maedhros’s hands tangled in his hair and the other stroking down his back to settle at his hip, to slide his own hands over Maedhros’s shoulders and feel muscles that flexed evenly and symmetrically. He paused in his exploration when he felt Maedhros tugging at his shirt, and sat back to let him pull it off. Maedhros said nothing, eyes drinking in Fingon’s exposed skin, the brown tinged darkly gold in the firelight. Fingon felt himself growing hard at the heat of that gaze, which didn’t escape Maedhros’s notice. A wicked gleam sparked in his eyes, and he hooked his thumb through the waistband of Fingon’s leggings and yanked him onto his lap. 

Fingon unfastened Maedhros’s tunic, shoving it down to pool around his waist so that he could tweak a nipple sharply in revenge — but rather than the gasp of pleasure that trick had usually evoked, Maedhros hissed in pain. 

“Too hard?” 

Maedhros rolled his shoulders, looking a bit rueful. “Sensitive,” he muttered tersely. “No scars.” 

“Right,” said Fingon, biting his lip. “Of course.” He would have to remember to be more gentle. 

“I am whole, now,” Maedhros said with a twist to his mouth that was more grimace than smile. It was a half-truth at best, but he spoke as though to make light of it. “Not so ugly anymore.”

Fingon stilled and then sat back a bit, resting his hands on Maedhros’s shoulders and searching his gaze. “You know I never thought your scars ugly. They were proof that you survived.” 

_As this new, unmarred body is proof that you did not,_ came the treacherous thought, and though he quashed it immediately, Maedhros must have caught the edge of it or else reached a similar thought on his own. He drew Fingon’s hands gently off his shoulders, though he kept them clasped in his own.

“Do you know why I chose my own death? For a long time after Sirion I relived the attack over and over in memory. I could not understand Elwing: why would she jump, when we offered her her children for the jewel? But she had no reason to think we would honour such a bargain. And later, of course, I learned what it was to see no path forward but one that requires self-destruction. 

“Those who return from Mandos accept the risk of living in a world that has hurt them once already — of living among people that have hurt them, or killed them, or killed their kin. Those who remain in Mandos do so because that is not a world they can bear to live in. When I jumped, it was because I could no longer bear to live in a world that had space for someone like me.”

Fingon’s throat clenched painfully. “And now?” he managed. 

“I cannot erase my deeds. But if there are amends to be made, I cannot make them from within the Halls. At least, I did not think I could. Yet I wonder if that might not have been the better choice after all, when I think of Elwing, of Nimloth, of Olwë; when I think of my mother . . . of Elrond and Elros. Maybe I would have served them best by remaining in Mandos.”

On two of those scores at least Fingon could correct him. “Not your mother. And not Elrond. He hopes for your return. Possibly mostly so he can shout at you for a good long while, but you cannot deny you owe him the opportunity.” 

Maedhros drew in an unsteady breath. 

“Findekáno—”

“Shh.” Fingon climbed into Maedhros’s lap again and drew Maedhros’s arms around his waist. “Anyhow, locking yourself away to wallow in guilt will serve no one at all. It will not be easy, as I said. But in the end you are almost as stubborn as I, and so we will go on.” 

He slid his hands down Maedhros’s chest, feather-light this time, and delighted in the flush his touch drew to Maedhros’s skin in its wake. They could relearn each other’s bodies; together, they could relearn life. In the morning the little house among the valley oaks awaited them, and they could weave new stories there. 

It could, Fingon thought, be enough.


End file.
